Images speaking louder than text

When approaching books using primarily images it was easy to get distracted by ones that utilize photographs or drawings, but what really drew my attention were books that created images themselves. Without using text, the work of Barton Lidice Benes and Brian Dettmer is striking and memorable.

Dettmer had made a collection of books by carving from the pages of existing texts. Removing elements and choosing to retain others creates a new work in itself. The meticulousness of this and the final result is really cool.

Barton Lidice Benes makes a book that is impossible to read by wrapping it in rope and using rusty nails to keep it shut. But the book is a commentary on censorship, representing it as a thorny, dirty, dangerous thing.

Through the creative use of imagery these artists make the books images in themselves.